"I mention all of this because Heroes Against Darkness is a 4e heartbreaker, and a really good one."

"There are lots of little tweaks like this that I really like. The GM advice chapter is also pretty meaty, and I'd feel fairly comfortable giving Heroes Against Darkness to a new roleplayer as their first adventure game."

"Heroes Against Darkness in general has the feel of 4e done right. I don't say that as someone who hated 4e and wanted it to be fundamentally different, but as someone who played it and felt that the game didn't live up to its own promise. If that sounds like the kind of thing you'd be interested in, go check it out."

It's not all flowers and holding hands though, 'cos John has a couple of criticisms:

"The not particularly serious one is that there's some extraneous swearing in a couple of chapters. I'm not a prude, but it kind of comes out of nowhere and doesn't serve much purpose."

Now I'm a fairly conversational writer, so sometimes more colorful turns of phrase slip into my works. As far as I can tell, in reading Heroes Against Darkness you'll get one 'shit' and one 'crap'. You've been warned!

The second criticism is more serious:

"The more serious one is the underdeveloped skill system. Skills are mentioned in a couple of places: Each class has some suggested skills they should have, and there's a big list of possible skills, but the actual rules for skills are totally missing, from how many skills characters should have, to how and when they select those skills, to what skills do or how one uses them, to how one gets more. As a quick set of house rules, I'd imitate 4e somewhat: Having a skill would grant a +5 on any checks related to that skill. Character would select say, four at the start and could add another every other level."

I deliberately left the skill system out of Heroes Against Darkness, but its absence has been noted. But all is not lost, and we've had a few discussions about it over at RPGnet:

Sunday, 23 December 2012

After what seemed like an eternity (considering the speed of the POD process for Hero Kids), I finally took delivery of the proofs of Heroes Against Darkness hardcover and softcover books today from DriveThruRPG!

I won't bore you with any more of the trials and tribulations of the process, suffice to say that right now you can buy the hardcover and softcover books of Heroes Against Darkness from DriveThruRPG:

Thursday, 13 December 2012

So I got in touch with Scott over at DriveThruRPG to find out whether I'd messed up the files for the hardcover of Heroes Against Darkness, and I got this quick response:

"No, that isn't normal at all. It should take about a week at the outside. I'll send along an inquiry to our client rep over at LSI and see if she can track this down for you."

And like magic, today the print files are approved! I've ordered proofs of the softcover and hardcovers, which I hope will arrive before Christmas. Once I've checked them out I'll make them available on DriveThruRPG.